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Daily differences in patterns of physical activity among overweight/obese children engaged in a physical activity program
Author(s) -
Aires Luísa,
Santos Rute,
Silva Pedro,
Santos Paula,
Oliveira José,
Ribeiro José C.,
Rego Carla,
Mota Jorge
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
american journal of human biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.559
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1520-6300
pISSN - 1042-0533
DOI - 10.1002/ajhb.20658
Subject(s) - overweight , physical activity , obesity , gerontology , medicine , psychology , demography , physical therapy , endocrinology , sociology
The aim of this study was to compare the physical activity of overweight/obese children during days when they attended a physical activity program, and days when they did not. This is a cross‐sectional intervention study of daily physical activity. The participants were referred by family, doctors, or hospital pediatricians to take part in a 10‐month interdisciplinary, outpatient obesity intervention program for children. The subjects included 41 overweight and obese children aged 8–16 years, 19 boys (46%) and 22 girls (54%); BMI: 25.7 + 3.3 kg m −2 . The MTI Actigraph was used as an objective measure of daily physical activity over seven consecutive days. Physical activity program days presented a significantly higher percentage of time (4.68%) spent in moderate‐to‐vigorous activity compared with no physical activity program days (3.16%) and weekend (2.7%). The results of this study suggest that a physical activity program can help increasing daily physical activity in obese children, with a special focus on MVPA level. Our data point that obese children are less active at weekend than during weekdays. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.